microRNAs (miRNAs, miRs) are endogenous non-coding small RNAs that interfere with the translation of coding messenger RNAs (mRNAs) in a sequence specific manner (Meister et al., 2004), playing a critical role in the control of gene expression during development and tissue homeostasis (Chen et al., 2004; He and Hannon, 2004; Yi et al., 2006). Certain miRNAs have been shown to be deregulated in human cancer (Croce and Calin, 2005), and their specific over- or under-expression has been shown to correlate with particular tumor types (Calin and Croce, 2006; Lu et al., 2005), as well as to predict patient outcome (Calin et al., 2005; Guo et al., 2008; Takamizawa et al., 2004; Yanaihara et al., 2006; Yu et al., 2008). In some cases miRNA overexpression results in reduced expression of tumor suppressor genes (Hayashita et al., 2005; He et al., 2005; Voorhoeve et al., 2006), while loss of miRNA expression often leads to oncogene activation (Calin et al., 2005; Cimmino et al., 2005; Hebert et al., 2007; Johnson et al., 2005; Lee and Dutta, 2007; Mayr et al., 2007). Recent work has shown an essential role for miRNA deregulation in breast cancer metastasis (Ma et al., 2007; Tavazoie et al., 2008).
Malignant melanoma (MM) is one of the fastest growing malignancies in the United States (Benjamin et al., 2007), and its associated mortality continues to rise throughout the world (Geller et al., 2007). In addition to well defined genetic lesions (reviewed in Chin et al., 2006), melanomas are characterized by frequent chromosomal aberrations associated with tumor progression (Jonsson et al., 2007). In particular, melanomas display a characteristic pattern of genomic alterations involving miRNA genes.
However, there is an unmet need for new compositions and methods for diagnosis, prevention and treatment of melanoma or melanoma associated symptoms.